In contemporary hybrid media systems, political actors constantly experiment with new communicative strategies to influence voters during elections. Humour, sarcasm, and irony are examples of persuasive techniques that have increasingly been studied in a variety of contexts, yet there is still limited research examining uses of comedy and news satire genres in relation to strategic political communication during election campaigns. This article contributes to the literature through an exploration of what we define as ‘strategic satire’, focusing on how the two largest political parties in Sweden, The Social Democratic party and the Sweden Democrats, have utilised this strategy on YouTube. We assess strategic news satire across multiple dimensions including generic aspects, topics, and semiotic resources. Results reveal overlapping strategies, but with variations in implementation shaped by differing ideological foundations.